---
title: It must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with st… — Tanglewood Tales · tree and pragmatics
description: It must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with streets two or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage. A sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 1, with its dependency tree an
---

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# Tanglewood Tales, The Pygmies., part 1, sentence 6

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It must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with streets two or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage.

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**What happens:** be, behold, pave, border · **To what, where:** little cities, streets

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This is a sentence of «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Pygmies., part 1. The page gives its syntax tree — a dependency tree in the style of Universal Dependencies — and its pragmatics clause by clause: what happens, when and where, as Mova's frames read it from the tree.

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**Checked tree.** This sentence is in the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3 (`gutenberg:pg976:441`): parsed by Mova, then checked and patched by a teacher model under UD validation gates — Mova annot: Rust (en) → Claude Opus (medium) patches; gates UD 2.18.

## The tree {#tree}

```conllu
# sent_id = book:pg976:7:6
# text = It must have been very pretty to behold their little cities, with streets two or three feet wide, paved with the smallest pebbles, and bordered by habitations about as big as a squirrel's cage.
1	It	it	PRON	PRP	Case=Nom|Gender=Neut|Number=Sing|Person=3|PronType=Prs	6	expl	_	_
2	must	must	AUX	MD	VerbForm=Fin	6	aux	_	_
3	have	have	AUX	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	aux	_	_
4	been	be	AUX	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part	6	cop	_	_
5	very	very	ADV	RB	_	6	advmod	_	_
6	pretty	pretty	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	0	root	_	_
7	to	to	PART	TO	_	8	mark	_	_
8	behold	behold	VERB	VB	VerbForm=Inf	6	csubj	_	_
9	their	their	PRON	PRP$	Case=Gen|Number=Plur|Person=3|Poss=Yes|PronType=Prs	11	nmod:poss	_	_
10	little	little	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	11	amod	_	_
11	cities	city	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	8	obj	_	_
12	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	14	punct	_	_
13	with	with	ADP	IN	_	14	case	_	_
14	streets	street	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	11	nmod	_	_
15	two	two	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	18	nummod	_	_
16	or	or	CCONJ	CC	_	17	cc	_	_
17	three	three	NUM	CD	NumForm=Word|NumType=Card	15	conj	_	_
18	feet	foot	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	19	obl:unmarked	_	_
19	wide	wide	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	14	amod	_	_
20	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	21	punct	_	_
21	paved	pave	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	14	acl	_	_
22	with	with	ADP	IN	_	25	case	_	_
23	the	the	DET	DT	Definite=Def|PronType=Art	25	det	_	_
24	smallest	small	ADJ	JJS	Degree=Sup	25	amod	_	_
25	pebbles	pebble	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	21	obl	_	_
26	,	,	PUNCT	,	_	28	punct	_	_
27	and	and	CCONJ	CC	_	28	cc	_	_
28	bordered	border	VERB	VBN	Tense=Past|VerbForm=Part|Voice=Pass	21	conj	_	_
29	by	by	ADP	IN	_	30	case	_	_
30	habitations	habitation	NOUN	NNS	Number=Plur	28	obl:agent	_	_
31	about	about	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
32	as	as	ADV	RB	_	33	advmod	_	_
33	big	big	ADJ	JJ	Degree=Pos	30	amod	_	_
34	as	as	ADP	IN	_	38	case	_	_
35	a	a	DET	DT	Definite=Ind|PronType=Art	36	det	_	_
36	squirrel	squirrel	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	38	nmod:poss	_	_
37	's	's	PART	POS	_	36	case	_	_
38	cage	cage	NOUN	NN	Number=Sing	33	obl	_	_
39	.	.	PUNCT	.	_	6	punct	_	_
```

## Pragmatics {#pragmatics}

<!-- .fr -->
| # | verb | tense, mood | who | what, whom | to whom | where | when | other | roles by |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | **is** | must · perfect |  |  |  |  |  | pretty *property* | tree rules |
| 2 | **behold** | to-infinitive |  | Pygmies's little cities |  |  |  | with streets | vn sight-30.2 «NP V NP»: agent=Experiencer city=Stimulus |
| 3 | **pave** | participle |  | streets *not said here* |  |  |  | with the smallest pebbles | vn fill-9.8-1 «NP V NP PP.theme»: agent=Agent with pebble=Theme |
| 4 | **border** | participle |  |  |  |  |  |  | vn contiguous\_location-47.8 «NP V NP»: agent=Theme |

<!-- .note -->
One row per clause the reader finds. «not said here»: a role filled from the clause above. «roles by»: a VerbNet class and frame when one fits the verb, else the reader's rules on the tree.

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**Text:** «Tanglewood Tales» by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Project Gutenberg book 976 (public domain in the USA). **Tree:** the tales treebank of Mova corpus 0.3, Apache-2.0 OR MIT. **Frames:** Mova's frames reader (`prag`), the chapter read in order.

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